


double-up chance

by cipherstranger



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cipherstranger/pseuds/cipherstranger
Summary: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A con man, a cop, and an ingénue walk into a bar…





	double-up chance

**Author's Note:**

> just assume everyone is of age

 

 

Tuesdays are card game night at the BARian, all drinks on the house for the winner and runner-up of the poker tournament, and the tables up front by the stage are all taken by casuals who shuffle cards like they wouldn’t know a poker face if it bit them.

It’s starting to be that time of night when people at the bar are getting drunk enough to get handsy. Vector glances once more at Kamishiro a few seats down, verifies he's still exactly where Kaito had said he would be. Stares into the bottom of the drink someone bought him, prays to god he’s friendly enough with Alit that that guy would say if someone tried to mix something weird into it. He checks his watch and prays for time to skip forward an hour so that he can finally leave.

(Every bar this side of town is the wrong bar to be. But, better this sort of wrong crowd than the ones that leave people without their spleen behind the trash heap.

That’s what Vector tells himself, anyway: there are worse things than this crowd and the way they’re looking at him tonight.)

By day he’s Shingetsu Rei, upstanding member of the Barian Crime Unit, and by night he’s a deep cover agent pretending to be a hooker in the sketchiest bar this side of Heartland City.

(“You’re the one with the pretty face,” Tenjou had said blankly when Vector had complained about getting stuck with night duty again, and then tossed him leather and cufflinks and told him to get changed.)

Right then Tsukumo Yuuma skips in the door, decked out in enough clashing primary colors it makes Vector’s eyes hurt even in the low lighting. Gives the whole bar an expert once-over, and then slides carefully onto the bar stool next to Kamishiro.

“Hey,” he says, with a bright smile. “Is this seat taken?”

Kamishiro blinks. “No, go ahead," he says.

Target acquired.

Yuuma squints at the drink menu and waves Alit over to order something, then asks his new companion his name.

“Uh.” Kamishiro Ryouga is the second best Duel Monsters player in the country, and if Kaito is to be believed, a complete airhead otherwise. “Reginald.”

Fine _,_ Vector thinks. Not a complete idiot. Still tasteless with names.

Yuuma blinks and mangles the name badly before saying, “Can I call you Shark?”

Kamishiro shrugs. “Sure, go ahead?”

He’s actually blushing, and Vector already wants to go over and deck the guy. But he is on the clock, and he is capable of restraint.

(Mostly.)

(The patrons in this bar are shitty but the alcohol is damn good and if someone on his other side is offering him a free drink—well.)

Tsukumo Yuuma runs a good con, Vector admits. He’s managed to weasel out of Kamishiro name, age, middle school, and number of siblings, and his eyes positively dance when Kamishiro says that, yes, he plays Duel Monsters.

“Hey, me too! I’m so glad, It’s so hard to find people who still play it any more—“ He leans in conspiratorially. “Shark, have you ever heard of Numbers?”

“Mm?” Kamishiro says, and leans in with interest, and—wow, Yuuma definitely doesn’t have his hands in all the wrong places. Vector mimes puking into his drink, which makes the guy who bought it frown, and Vector mentally adds this to the 'list of 1000 reasons making Vector do this is a bad idea, addressed to: one Tenjou Kaito'.

(Vector is also slightly disappointed at losing a source of free alcohol but, never mind, Vector thinks; he got one drink out of it already, and he has to be at least a little bit sober when he has to drive later anyway.)

At the bar, Yuuma is saying to Kamishiro, “These are a special kind of card, called Numbers. They’re very powerful.”

Kamishiro blinks.  “How so?”

Yuuma giggles, shifts in his seat. “You’re a duelist, read the card text yourself and see. Here— I’ll lend you this one. And since I had the good fortune to run into a duelist in a place like this, how about a deal? if you beat me in a duel, you get to keep it.”

“Something like this? What’s the catch?”

“Nothing,” Yuuma says happily. “If you duel with me, then you’re my friend, and friends help each other, right?”

“Heh. Then prepare to lose,” Kamishiro says with all the panache of the middle schooler he really is, cool demeanor and good looks be damned. “Do you know who I am?”

“Nope!” Yuuma says happily. “But don’t underestimate me. My Number, the King of Wishes, Utopia, is the strongest of them all!”

“We’ll see,” Kamishiro says, and gets out his deck.

“—Wait,” Yuuma says, and puts a finger to his lips thoughtfully. “If you win, you get to keep this powerful card. But what if I win?“

“It’s a hundred years before you’ll beat me,” Kamishiro says, running a hand through his hair self-consciously. “Name your price.”

Yuuma says something and Kamishiro reaches into his deck pouch and fishes out his cards; shuffles through them until he finds a holofoil and lays it on the table. Yuuma looks at it, makes an exaggerated squeal of excitement as he gets out his duel disk.

(Vector pinches his nose and takes a drink, thinks Tenjou Kaito better give him a raise or something to make up for Vector _not_ actually punching this guy off his stool and hopefully onto some common sense.)

Kamishiro opens with a turn one Xyz summon and Yuuma only has to say, “Wow, you’re so cool, Shark,” to make him preen, and Vector buries his head in his hands so he doesn’t die from secondhand embarrassment.

The night goes on and the duel goes on and Vector sees that Kamishiro is actually legitimately good — he isn't National Championship runner-up for nothing— and Yuuma’s forehead creases slightly as he keeps playing, keeps drawing the exact cards he needs to just stay alive.

Every time Kamishiro summons a shark monster, Vector reaches for the glass and takes a drink.

“—See this pendant? My dad gave it to me,” Yuuma is saying. “It means to try hard, and never give up. Do you know, Shark, that if a duelist believes enough in the heart of the cards, then their deck will hear them, and their draw can change even the very cards themselves…”

 

He makes a show of taking a deep breath, and then draws the top card of his deck. His face breaks into a smile. “Aww right!” Yuuma cheers, turns the card to show Kamishiro as he punches the air. “Kattobingu!”

“Wow.” Kamishiro stares. “Double-up Chance again, _really?”_

“Really!” Yuuma says happily.

“That’s—awesome,” Kamishiro says with admiration, and Vector again has to restrain the urge to head over and deck him.

“Right?! I attack with Utopia, and then use one overlay unit to negate…”

“Excuse me,” Vector pushes past. He’s seen enough. “Tsukumo Yuuma?”

“Mm?” Yuuma looks up. “Who are you, do you want something?”

“The autoshuffle on your duel disk. It’s set to off.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Yuuma says. He looks uncomfortable now. “Watch what you’re saying, I wouldn’t do something like that! Don’t go accusing people without proof. You believe me, right, Shark?“

Kamishiro hesitates. “Uh—“

Vector retrieves the pinhole camera in his jacket pocket, plugs it into his own Gazer which he sets on the desk and hits replay, and Yuuma falls silent as he watches the feed.

Then he jumps off the stool and dashes for the door.

The bouncer at the entrance blocks the door with his large frame, and Vector lets them figure it out while he turns back to Kamishiro, who’s still holding No. 32 in his hand. Picks the holofoil off the table – Mermail Abyssmegalo – and hands it back. “Don’t bother with the other one, the card’s a fake. That guy packet sniffs your credentials on the AR Network and then hacks your gazer so it looks like the cards really work.”

“It’s still very awesome,” Kamishiro says. He takes the card back, then looks from it to Vector. “You’re an inspector?”

“Barian Guardian.” Vector says. His life right now is made up completely of people who pick stupid names and he wishes he knew who to blame. He fishes out his badge — takes a while, it's hard to get anything out of pants this tight— and shows it to Kamishiro, who blinks.

“Cardigan? Wow," he says again. And — okay — question of brains aside, Vector’s not immune to either stark admiration or a pretty face.

At the door, Yuuma has stopped fighting, both hands held by one of the bouncer’s large ones behind his back, face scrunched up in indignation. Gilag drags him over by the collar, taps Vector’s shoulder to indicate they’re done.

“—Hey,” Kamishiro says, and slides Vector a paper napkin with writing on it. “If you wanna come back, when you get off work, I’ll buy you a drink as thanks?”

Vector glances at the napkin, nods to Kamishiro, and leaves it be. He has to be professional, after all.

(He memorized the number already anyway.)

The moment they’re out the door Yuuma again tries his damndest to twist out of Gilag’s grip, and almost succeeds if not for Vector physically knocking him into the wall. Yuuma is not above biting, Vector learns quickly, and is glad Kaito had the sense to lend him long sleeves.

Just a bit farther, Vector tells Gilag apologetically. Downtown parking is a special kind of hell.

When they reach the car Gilag shoves Yuuma unceremoniously into the passenger seat, where Vector picks up the handcuffs in the glove box and chains his hands to the door. Takes the key and tucks it into his back pocket, then turns to Gilag. “Thanks, man.”

“All good, Vec?”

“Yeah. Say hi to Durbe.”

Durbe, and Alit and Mizael and Alcor. This is the life he left, Vector thinks, for a cubicle prison and shitty pay as a government paper-pusher and occasional vice ring-busting spy.

_Thanks a lot, Tenjou Kaito._

Vector circles round the car and gets in the driver’s seat, pulls out of the parking lot. In the passenger seat, Yuuma seems to have accepted his fate; he’s contorted himself to be as comfortable as possible with his hands chained to the door, and is staring out at something outside. Not bad for a night’s work, Vector thinks. Maybe that workaholic Tenjou will actually let him off watch duty next time.

He starts the car.

“Inspector Shingetsu,” Yuuma says.

“What?”

“Can you change the music? It’s noisy.”

Vector scowls – it’s bad enough that no one at HQ appreciates his taste in emo rock, without someone also insulting it in his own goddamn car – but leans over to tune the radio.

He pulls out onto the highway; it’s empty, this time of night. Watches the road fly by as the radio announcer reads the weather forecast for the next week, tries not to think of hard concrete under his shoes later when he has to walk three blocks to the train station to catch the late night train back to an empty apartment.

“Hey, Inspector Shingetsu.”

It’s starting to get annoying. “What?”

“Is prison really as horrible as—“

Vector glances over at Yuuma, who swallows and looks at his shoes.  

Maybe it’s how late at night it is, or maybe it’s the alcohol or too many late nights in the office reading the kid’s file while trying to profile him, but Vector feels bad for the kid. No parents since a young age, brought up by an older sister too busy trying to make ends meet to spend very much time with him. With no one to steer him right, no wonder he’d fallen in with the wrong crowd

(Tries not to relate, tries not to think about the year he spent sleeping in the school library by day and doing – freelance work – by night before Kaito picked him up and took him in.)

“It’s. Not that bad,” Vector lies.

Yuuma blinks. His eyes are too goddamn big. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

They’re at a stoplight on the bridge over the main expressway, the residential area full of high-rise apartments is up ahead and Vector thinks that maybe Yuuma’s a good kid gone wrong, maybe what he needs isn’t juvie but a listening ear, or a helping hand—

“—Inspector Shingetsu?” Yuuma says again.

Vector turns to him. “What now—“

Something hard smashes Vector in the face so hard he sees stars. It clatters to his side with a loud clink. Vector swears as he hears the door release; out of the corner of still-swimming vision he sees Yuuma kick the door wide open and throw himself bodily out of the car and onto the pavement, and then pick himself up and run for it.

Vector swears and stumbles out of the car, but Yuuma has disappeared into the mass of buildings on the other side of the bridge before Vector can look twice.

He gets back into the car and something cold and solid meets his fingers when he reaches for the handbrake. It’s the handcuffs he used to cuff Yuuma to the door, and the key is in the lock, not digging into Vector’s rear end as it should have been. That bastard picked his pocket, Vector thinks, and touches his stinging forehead and his fingers come away with a streak of blood.

Vector swears again and rubs the bridge of his nose, wills the headache away. So much for a night’s work.

He almost seriously considers writing his resignation letter and fleeing the country; it beats having to face Tenjou Kaito in the morning. But then he remembers Kamishiro’s number and his offer of another drink. Can’t leave just yet, he thinks.

There are headlights in the distance. Another car is heading this way. Best not block the road, he thinks. Starts the car back up, considers going to the station to write his report anyway, then turns around and heads for home. He can figure out how to explain this to Kaito in the morning.

 

 


End file.
